Democrats Doing a Little Dance of Joy

Congressional Democrats are doing a little dance of joy today after Democrat Travis Childers's surprising win in Mississippi's special election to fill the seat of now-Senator Roger Wickers, a Republican. Childers' win marks the third empty seat the Democrats have taken since the 2006 elections (the others were Don Cazayoux in Louisiana and Bill Foster in Illinois, who won former Speaker Dennis Hastert's seat).

The win sparked a meeting of the National Republican Congressional Committee today, at which retiring Congressman Tom Davis reportedly distributed a memo castigating current Republican leadership and warned that Republicans could lose another 19 seats this fall. Current NRCC chair, Tom Cole, admitted "A large segment of the American public doesn't have confidence in the Republican Party to deal with the issues in front of us. What we have to do is look in the mirror bit and ask how we lost our way."

How do you think the Republican Party—also known as the "Party of Lincoln"—lost its way? Was it when it spent the last 8 years focused on abortion and gay marriage amendments, Terri Schiavo and the supposed scourge of illegal immigrants while they passed tax cuts, expanded the size and scope of the federal government, eroded civil liberties and ejected more religion into politics than any time in my memory? Or are you too busy dancing on the grave to care?